MLS And Weekdays – Feast or Famine?

It was a welcome announcement that MLS will not schedule matches during the group phase, semifinals and finals of the 2010 World Cup. That means the league will not play from Friday, June 11 through Friday, June 25. The WC round of 16 will be played from Saturday June 26 through Tuesday June 29. Wednesday and Thursday, June 30-July 1 are off days. The quarterfinals will be on Friday July 2 and Saturday July 3. Here MLS gets a break as July 4(and 5) are rest days, the Fourth traditionally being a big attendance day. The tourney closes with the semis on Tuesday and Wednesday, the 6th and 7th, a couple of rest days and the consolation game(3rd/4th) on Saturday the 10th and the final on Sunday the 11th.

In the past, one of the reasons given not to respect the FIFA calendar was the complaint that the reduced revenue of weekday matches would not be acceptable while the league was trying to reach a stable financial position.

“It would cost us up to $5 million to take off all the FIFA dates, which increase in number in 2009.”

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So I banged together a few numbers from 2008 to see what it told me. 42 games were played Mon-Fri as follows:

2008 Weekday Games

Monday – 1

Tuesday – 0

Wednesday – 9

Thursday – 27(ESPN Thursday nights)

Friday – 5, 3 of which were played on July 4

Here you can see the average attendance for weekends(Sat and Sun) and weekdays and the average differences. The average difference is then multiplied times the number of weekday games.

2008

Weekends

Weekdays

Notes

Avg

GP

Avg

GP

Avg +/-

GP times Avg +/-

Chicago

17,211

12

16,328

3

-883

-2,649

Chivas USA

13,506

13

25,572

2

12,066

24,132

Blanco/Beckham

Colorado

13,438

13

15,095

2

1,657

3,314

4-Jul

Columbus

14,795

13

13,499

2

-1,296

-2,592

Dallas

16,143

10

8,345

5

-7,797

-38,985

4-Jul

DC United

21,297

11

15,817

4

-5,480

-21,920

Houston

18,115

11

13,706

4

-4,409

-17,636

Kansas City

11,032

13

8,435

2

-2,598

-5,196

Los Angeles

25,648

11

27,000

4

1,352

5,408

4-Jul

New England

16,834

10

19,074

5

2,240

11,200

one int’l friendly

NY Red Bull

16,386

14

9,521

1

-6,865

-6,865

Real Salt Lake

16,688

10

15,163

5

-1,525

-7,625

San Jose

13,975

14

10,046

1

-3,929

-3,929

Toronto FC

20,154

13

19,894

2

-261

-522

per game

168

42

-63,865

-1,521

Using approximate game day revenue numbers as gathered over the years when such things leak out, we are able to come up with a very rough approximation of per capita game day spending. The numbers I am using are as follows: Tickets: $18, Food: $7, Merchandise: $5. Since every venue does not charge for parking, I left that out. So I’m just calling it $30 per head and using that with published attendance numbers. Applying these we get a game day loss for the 42 weekday games of $1,915,950.

2009 Weekday Games

Monday – 0

Tuesday – 0

Wednesday – 14 (ESPN 3)

Thursday – 8 (ESPN 6, FSC 1)

Friday – 8 (ESPN 3)

(There are two more weekday games this season.)

2009

Weekends

Weekdays

Notes

Avg

GP

Avg

GP

Avg +/-

GP times Avg +/-

Chicago

14,129

12

16,623

2

2,494

4,988

Beckham

Chivas USA

15,112

11

20,379

1

5,267

5,267

Blanco

Colorado

12,934

13

8,409

2

-4,526

-9,052

Columbus

14,701

13

8,793

1

-5,908

-5,908

Dallas

9,410

12

29,227

2

19,817

39,635

DC United

17,395

11

11,233

3

-6,162

-18,486

Houston

16,287

13

14,516

1

-1,771

-1,771

Kansas City

10,075

11

9,731

2

-344

-687

Los Angeles

19,812

13

21,679

1

1,867

1,867

no Blanco

New England

13,432

13

0

0

0

0

NY Red Bull

11,254

11

14,086

3

2,832

8,497

Beckham

Salt Lake

16,462

8

15,802

5

-661

-3,303

San Jose

14,782

13

9,774

2

-5,008

-10,016

Seattle

30,547

11

31,444

3

897

2,692

Toronto

20,309

11

20,409

2

100

200

per game

15,688

176

16,767

30

13,922

464

2008: Let’s look at the three teams that had 5 weekday games, a full third of their home schedules, FC Dallas, New England and Real Salt Lake. RSL fared better than Dallas, but both suffered from reduced averages, while New England paired up one of its weekday games with an international friendly featuring Brasil v Venezuela. That game drew over 54,000 which was enough to put them in the positive column for their weekday games.

If you sum the extended numbers you come up with a deficit of 63,866 over the 42 weekday games. That would be part of MLS’s argument. Some teams would not tolerate the loss in revenue. But it’s clear that if create a marketable item, either with a big draw player, or an intriguing event to pair with an MLS match, the attendance deficit argument looks to be very flimsy. In fact, the league cut down the weekday matches by 10(by season’s end) in 2009, despite the heavy schedule of CONCACAF and FIFA events.

2009: What can we say about these numbers? The first one that jumps out is the Dallas number. Time after time we see that scheduling international friendlies with MLS games boosts attendance regardless of the day of week. The other is Chivas USA’s massive increase in the average when Blanco and Beckham were the opponents. Just goes to show that if you bring ‘the goods’, people will come out on a weekday.

Here’s a compilation of MLS attendance by day as of play ending Oct 8, 2009.

MLS Attendance by Day

Day

GP

Total

Avg

MON

7

135,349

19,336

TUE

21

418,310

19,920

WED

339

4,196,526

12,379

THU

132

1,957,477

14,829

FRI

91

1,449,785

15,932

SAT

1526

24,017,714

15,739

SUN

373

6,091,162

16,330

Now before any nit pickers get their rocks off with a rant, let me say this is a very rough picture of the effects of weekday v weekend game days. But it does serve as a sort of baseline to reference when I hear pronouncements such as ‘The Don’ made about the problems of more weekday matches. Hell, we even see that with 2 weekday matches to go in 2009, the average attendance is up over weekend matches.

Whether it be scheduling international friendlies, club friendlies, concerts or other variety events, it seems very clear to me that creative marketing departments will be the determining factor for teams making the best of more weekday matches, in particular during the summer months when schools are out of session. And if the draw is strong enough, i.e.; Mexico playing in Dallas, even a school night can be overcome.